Hello and welcome back to our short series on automotive tools and how to articles for the new weekend warrior auto mechanic. This isn’t written for the expert, but for the regular Joe and Jane such as yourself. In the past, we’ve had some great articles but today we are going to look at the overview on checking your radiator fluid. This may be all you need, but in the event you need more detailed instructions, we will cover them later.
The first task is to determine what type of cooling setup your car uses. Older vehicles will typically use a traditional radiator with cap setup. You will be able to open the radiator cap directly and look down into the body of the radiator. Typically the cap is in the front of the engine bay, just behind the hood release catch. It’s is also typically on the left side of the bay if you where looking at the front of the car, or the passenger side if you want to think of it that way. There are some special considerations to take into account when opening your radiator, but for now it’s just best to know that you should only open it when the car is cool, and use a rag over the cap to avoid burning yourself with steam just in case it’s not as cool as you thought it was.
The second type of system commonly used today is a remote fill setup. This is characterized by a secondary coolant tank on either fender well next to the engine. Typically your engine coolant will be green, pink, orange, or blue in color. It’s important to know exactly what type of coolant your car uses in case you need to top it off – not all fluids of one color are the same. You will want to look on the outside of your reserve coolant tank to make sure that the fluid level is between the min and max bar levels.
Tags: auto mechanic, automotive, automotive tools, coolant, coolant tank, engine, engine coolant, fender, max bar, radiator, radiator cap, radiator fluid, steam, vehicle, weekend warrior